The amazing @sfupipeband has been practicing on campus this week, so it's felt a bit like living in Boston after the arrival of the Tartan Army. Good luck at ScotFestBC, @sfupipeband. youtube.com/watch?v=qCFhwBGT…

Outrageous: today Springer Nature (@SpringerNature) sent me an invite to be a guest editor for a new journal (Discover Psychology)... So far, so good. As the guest editor I would need to carry out all the editorial work for a new volume of the journal. So far, so good. I asked about the compensation for the work, and... Well... You know... It's an unpaid work. I would gain "recognition from my field". Guess what? In 2025, Springer Nature reported a total revenue of €1.926 billion, representing an underlying growth of 6.2%. The company's adjusted operating profit (AOP) reached €543.6 million. This strong financial performance was primarily driven by their Research division and continued growth in full open access. Now, again, they keep trying to profit off our free labor. This must stop.

More than 250 academics, including CAF Director Dr Edward Skidelsky, have signed a letter urging the University of Oxford to reinstate Dr Michael Foran’s lecture series after trans activists interrupted two events linked to his recent work on sex, gender identity and the legal tensions that have emerged between them. The signatories accuse Oxford of enabling a “heckler’s veto”. Full story below, plus a link to the letter for academics and students who wish to add their support: afcomm.org.uk/2026/06/15/aca…

Hard agree.

One for archaeologists and wine-lovers. theguardian.com/world/2026/j…

Remarkable. And UK politicians wonder why many voters no longer trust them and some embrace conspiracy theories.

C'mon Australia!

Interesting analogy.

These videos of Brits and other Europeans discovering American food have reminded me of my encounter with proper milkshakes when I joined @WSUPullman back in 2003. Fantastic, amazing, so moreish, etc. Once a week on the way back from the farmer's market in Moscow, ID. Until, that is, @collardnj and I decided to look at how many calories were in a shake and discovered that each one was more than my daily recommended total. 😬

The story just keeps getting better.

This is a pretty interesting piece about the Vanderbilt-WashU report. I found Appiah's comments about the treatment of conservative professors and students rather naive. I mean, I don't think affirmative action for conservatives is the right way to go, but it's pretty odd for a professor not to know that there's active discrimination against conservatives on campus. Good lord, there's active discrimination against centrists, let alone conservatives. archive.is/vqUf7

They're having a laugh. Twenty-four bucks for a so-called premium beer, which normally just means something like Stella. At least the fact that the tickets are out of my price range means I don't have to get annoyed about the massively overpriced food and drink.

A prehistoric cave older than Neanderthals and modern humans discovered, sealed for 300,000 years labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/0…

It’s lucky Russia isn’t a threat anymore.

Brace yourselves. After browsing through the worst genres of writing known to humankind, I've written a Substack essay that is both a LinkedIn homily turned on its head and a clickbaity listicle. "If You Could See What I Can See" open.substack.com/pub/pooter…

Evil rarely announces itself. Hannah Arendt didn’t warn us that the greatest danger would come from monsters. She warned us it would come from ordinary people who stop asking questions. People who trade conscience for slogans, curiosity for certainty, and morality for obedience. The lesson of the Holocaust was never just about one man. It was about what happens when a society decides that thinking is optional. Every generation believes it would have stood against evil. History keeps asking the same question: Would you have? Or would you have simply gone along because everyone else did? That’s why Arendt still matters. And that’s why this conversation matters. Because the opposite of evil isn’t outrage. It’s the courage to think for yourself.

This is a disaster. Collegial governance is central to the successful operation of a university and a senate with strong faculty representation is a core element of collegial governance.

This evening we went to see the Kings of Soul perform with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. It was thoroughly enjoyable. One of the Kings, Chester Gregory, has an amazing range. Definitely worth getting a ticket if they visit your city.

The Bow-and-Arrow along the Southern Arc and Through to Oceania: Earliest Appearances, Archaeological Challenges, and Future Opportunities link.springer.com/article/10…